by Dahlia West
He took his time undressing her, letting her sober up as much as possible. He tugged off each boot and tossed them aside, revealing her neatly painted toes. She’d never put her panties back on. They were lying somewhere on the floor of his Ford at this point. He did unzip the back of her skirt and pulled it down slowly, revealing her smooth white thighs and the thatch of dark curls between them. As much as he wanted to dive in and enjoy all that sweet cream, he slipped off her blouse instead and then slowly loosened her bra.
Her hand started to slide over her exposed breasts, but he encircled her wrist and pried it away gently. “Let me look at you, Princess. Let me see.”
She sighed, lips parted, legs parted, every bit of her revealed and open to him as he gazed down at her.
He nodded to himself and turned to the nightstand.
She reached out suddenly and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t.”
Sawyer hesitated, searching her face. “Cassidy—”
“Don’t do it,” she begged. “Don’t put anything between us. I trust you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m not going to pull out, Princess. I’m going to cum inside that tight little pussy of yours. I’ll do it in a condom, to protect you, but we’re cumming together tonight. That’s a fact.”
To his surprise—his shock—she nodded.
“You know what that means,” he said, testing the waters, seeing if she was still too sopped to think clearly.
Cassidy ran her delicate hand over her belly in a way that made him shiver with barely restrained desire. “Isn’t this how Barlows do it?” she whispered. “Babies first? To make sure I can’t get away?”
He nodded and wiped his mouth thoughtfully. It was unlikely she’d get pregnant on the first try, but one hundred years of Barlow men taking what they wanted, building their lives with their hands and their seed, made him drunk at just the thought.
Sawyer wanted what they’d had, a woman, a family, a future. He’d put it off for years in the rodeo, where the only person he’d looked after was Court. Though Sawyer was only twenty-seven, he was the settling-down type. He already felt that he’d wasted too much time. “I want kids, Cassidy,” he rasped.
“I know.”
“A lot of them,” he reminded her.
She nodded. “We talked about this already.”
Sawyer tried to speak, but his voice came out barely above a whisper. “Don’t play games with me, Princess. Not about this. Not ever about this.”
She reached for him, caught his hand, and tugged. “Give me a baby, Sawyer Barlow, before I tie you to the bed and make one myself.”
He still hesitated. The words were right, but that could be because they were what he wanted to hear.
Cassidy smiled up at him. “Trust me,” she said. “And I’ll trust you.”
He dropped his hand to her thigh and rubbed it gently. She opened her legs for him without having to be told. Her slit was glistening as he ran a finger along her swollen lips. “You’d do this for me?” he asked.
“For me, too. For us.”
A fresh drop of cream squeezed onto his fingertip. Cassidy was wet at the mere thought of it, it seemed. Sawyer himself was as hard as he could ever remember being. He had weaknesses—not many, but a few, and they were almost all female related. This was the biggest, though. A child. His child. His woman pregnant with his child.
Sawyer moved over her, lowering himself on top of her. She welcomed him inside her, urging him on with her hips and her hands. Images flooded his brain—Cassidy in his backseat, lying next to the Snake, underneath him now. He had a lifetime of it to look forward to. He spread her thighs and sank into her wet heat with a groan. He’d been without her for far too long.
“Princess,” he rasped as he thrust inside her, once, again, over and over. He worked her clit with his thumb, desperate to finish together this time. “Tighten up on me, baby,” he ordered. “Cum hard for me.”
He felt her shudder and clench and clamp down ferociously. Her clit throbbed between his fingertips.
“Sawyer!” she cried.
“Louder,” he demanded, slamming inside her.
“Sawyer!”
That drove him over the edge, his name on her ruby-red lips. He finally collapsed on her, in her, and she, for her part, wrapped herself around him and held on tight. There was no telling what would happen now, whether they’d be blessed or not. But the mere fact that she was willing had him shaking as he pulled her into his arms. No matter what, she was here, they were together. “You’re mine forever now,” he whispered in her ear.
“I always was.”
Epilogue
‡
CASSIDY WAS IN the office in the Big House with her head on the desk. She heard the door open but didn’t sit up.
“No sleeping on the job,” Walker told her in his deep, rumbling baritone.
She dragged herself to a sitting position and stretched. “I wasn’t sleeping. I was just trying to uncross my eyes.”
He smirked at her and shook his head as he sorted through the mail in his large hands. “You ever heard of Lone Star Stud Service? Your dad ever use them?” he asked her suddenly.
Cassidy frowned and shook her head. “No, can’t say that I’ve ever heard that name. Why?”
He made a face and set down the stack of flyers and bills on the edge of the desk. “Some outfit out of Dallas. The business account pays them monthly, automated payment, and we keep getting the receipts, but I can’t think why, since we have Sampson.” He sighed and lowered himself onto the leather couch.
Cassidy started to get up, to give the man his chair, but he waved her back down.
“It’s a lot to sort out,” he told her. “Dad kind of left behind a mess. Or, rather, he understood the mess, had a method to his madness, but he never quite got around to telling me about it.”
For the first time, Cassidy got a glimpse of the man behind the ten-gallon hat and the large belt buckle. He was tired. And she knew that he stayed up working here in this room until all hours. She saw the light on when she was on the couch in the bunkhouse, sitting up late to read.
“I could call them,” she offered. After all, she was the secretary for Snake River now.
“I have,” he grumbled. “Keep getting voicemail. No one calls back.”
“I’ll try,” she told him anyway, because he looked as though he could use all the help he could get.
Sawyer appeared in the doorway and leaned up against the frame, grinning at her. “Hitting the books?” he asked.
Cassidy groaned, probably feeling a bit like Walker did. “More like they’re hitting me.”
“Let’s go out,” he announced. “All of us. To The Spur.”
She closed her accounting book and stood up. “I suppose I could take a break for one evening.” She’d enrolled in online classes and had been working her ass off these last few weeks, and at this rate, Cassidy figured she’d have her accounting certification…oh, the day after the second coming, but she didn’t care. Walker seemed to be in no real hurry for her to finish. He seemed satisfied just that she was making steady progress. She wanted to finish, though, and start pulling her weight around here.
It was nice to finally feel useful, important, like she had a place and a purpose, and that was one of the best feelings she’d ever had in her life. Second only to being with Sawyer—naked, of course—and drowning in his kisses.
The best part was, pass or fail, Sawyer loved her no matter what. If she ended up running Snake River Ranch all on her own or gave up the classes in favor of being barefoot and pregnant for the rest of her life, Sawyer Barlow loved her.
“All right, let’s go,” she declared, pushing the chair back.
Walker groaned in response.
“Come on,” she said, walking past him to the doorway. “You, too.”
“I’m going to fall asleep on this couch.”
Cassidy shrugged. “Suit yourself, then.” In a loud, singsongy voice, she said to Sawyer, “I’ll just go get Dako
ta so we can coordinate outfits. I bought her this skirt. It’s amazing. Of course, she can’t bend over in it, but then again, she won’t be bending over…probably.”
That had Walker on his feet in a flash, all trace of exhaustion gone except for a bit of tightness around his eyes and mouth.
An hour later they all walked into The Silver Spur, with its loud, lurid crowd and its blaring jukebox. Sawyer pulled her to the dance floor and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Cassidy looked over his shoulder at all the people staring at them. They’d been together for a while, but the gossip mill never seemed to quit grinding out stories about them. “Everyone’s looking at us,” she said quietly.
“Everyone’s looking at you,” Sawyer argued. “Because no matter where you go, you’re the most beautiful woman in any room, Princess.”
She smirked at him. “You’re just a smooth talker, Sawyer Barlow. That’s all you are.”
“Oh, is that right? That’s all?”
He turned her again, and she no longer saw the faces of the people looking at them, no longer heard the whispers as the din lulled and the jukebox changed songs. All she saw was her Snake River cowboy. “Kiss me,” she demanded when he finished turning her and drew her back to him. “Kiss me that way.”
They stopped moving to the music, and he reached up, cupping her face in his hands. His lips came down on hers, and for that moment they were the only two people in Star Valley.
THE END
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AVAILABLE JULY 1ST!
MAVERICK (STAR VALLEY Book Three)
Austin Barlow took a chance on a tapped-out mine next to his family’s ranch, and now he’s reaping the rewards in ways no one predicted. Austin’s Folly is the talk of the state, and he’s pleased his brothers are being forced to eat crow.
He’s accepting an award at a swanky hotel in the Grand Tetons for his efforts. The alcohol and accolades are flowing freely, when a frisky filly with a ridiculously dirty mouth offers to throw a saddle on him and ride him hard. She’s obviously in over her head, and it’s adorable.
Of course he’ll take her up on her offer. You only live once, right? In the morning he’ll be back at the Folly and away from civilization for a while, so getting tangled in the hotel sheets with a pretty girl is just what he needs.
Leah Pierce has a new lease on life, and she’s grabbing the bull by the…horns. In town for a friend’s wedding and spurred by bachelorette party hijinks, she stumbles into the hotel bar on uncomfortably high heels, looking for a set of cowboy boots. The pair she spots are on the sexiest man she’s ever laid eyes on. With a little boost from her friend “Jack” she works up the courage to ask him to come up to her room.
The sex is incredible, the night unforgettable, even through the whiskey-soaked haze. In the morning Leah’s crossed off another item on her Reverse Bucket List—and gotten a souvenir to boot—which is cause for concern. She needs to find her dreamy dude—and fast—even though she only got a first name.
Austin is stunned when his green broke little filly shows up at Snake River looking for him. She’s got a newspaper tucked under her arm sporting his photo, with a headline that reads “Wyoming Wild Man Works Wonders,” but if she thinks she can snag herself a piece of the empire he and his brothers are rebuilding, she’s got another think coming.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Also by Dahlia West
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
About Maverick (Star Valley Book Three)